"Curse the blasted, jelly-boned swines, the
slimy, the belly-wriggling invertebrates, the miserable sodding
rotters, the flaming sods, the snivelling, dribbling, dithering palsied
pulseless lot that make up England today. They've got white of egg in
their veins." Thus D. H. Lawrence in a letter to a friend, writing
on the subject of his homeland. But Lawrence distributed his
displeasure evenhandedly; he had equally sharp words for the U.S.:
"It's so tough and wearing, with the iron springs poking out...